


I'm Falling Around You

by bulelo



Category: Bleach
Genre: Age Difference, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Bankai, Borderline Personality Disorder, Childhood Friends, Childhood Trauma, Destroying Childhood Memories, Enemies to Friends, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Enemies to Lovers, Eventual Romance, F/F, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, God Complex, Good Aizen Sousuke, Hearing Voices, M/M, Multi, Nihilism, Other, Past Abuse, Reincarnation, Revenge, Romance, Spiritual
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-26
Updated: 2018-03-11
Packaged: 2019-03-24 07:50:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13806774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bulelo/pseuds/bulelo
Summary: To Momo, he was a god. To her frazzled but determined replacement, he was just a man. A broken one, at that. [OC as Kidō expert!Hinamori, canon divergence, multipairing, alive!Kaien, "good"!Aizen]





	1. peaches and sour cream

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Hellooo, I've been highly inspired by fics like To Love a Monster by Coolio101 as of late. Wasn't a very big fan of Momo from canon, so this is a plot bunny that I just had to develop. The timeline might not be as some of us remember, but bear with me as certain characters will meet each other prior to where they might've originally. I really want this story to be a "what-if" and character exploration combined.
> 
> This first chapter is backstory-heavy, but I hope you enjoy nonetheless. Thank you for dropping by!
> 
> Disclaimer: I own nothing but Senya, Nori, and concepts. Mild swearing ahead.
> 
> Edit: 06/30/18

"It is so much safer not to feel, not to let the world touch me."

—Sylvia Plath

* * *

Let's play a game of "spot the abuse."

You're invited into the apartment of a colleague from the insurance office. It's been a long, sedentary day of crunching numbers, carrying files, and coping with coffee; a homemade meal is just what you need to heal your soul. So you follow Mr. Gekki home, kick off the shoes, and take the honorary guest seat at the table. The place is eggshell-white and unimpressionable, almost too neat, save for the occasional unlabeled bottle or cigarette pack.

Funny—Gekki never went out with you and the boys for a late night drink. Had he always been a smoker?

Vaguely, you wonder why the things in this room are nameless and subdued, but then Mrs. Gekki ushers in plates and you smell the omurice. All is well again. Her lowered eyes and wringing hands, nails bitten but painted, are secondary to the hearty food ahead and the good company of your friend.

You  _are_  friends, right? Then why do you know nothing about him? Has he ever talked about himself? A single word? You've sat next to each other for X number of years in the communications department. His hobbies, dislikes, feelings about the current government and political landscape: nothing.

How is this possible? Does he enjoy sports? Are there children in the house? No pictures or toys in sight…

Ah, look no further! Your worries have momentarily dispersed as a smile touches your lips. The daughter, perhaps seven or eight, stumbles in and finds her seat beside you, light-up sneakers twinkling against the chair leg.

But the relief is short-lived. Her gaze—an "old soul" kind, but isn't she just a kid?—is trained on you throughout the meal. You feel it breech your skin as the unnerving silence of the women in the room becomes an overwhelming backdrop to Mr. Gekki's voice, asking you about the most recent project and how your siblings are doing.

It's almost like his family isn't really  _there_. Accessories to the living space; just another set of paintings to hang up. From the way they sit so still, never once moving out of line, they could've fooled you.

Finally, against your better judgment, you meet the unchild-like eyes, so different from those of her parents. Deep and unwavering. Even as you reach for the ketchup—also an unlabeled red anomaly—you can't look away from the poker face. She, too, reaches for the bottle, matching your movements with a careful, anticipating grace.

You get the prickling feeling that she's done this before, to other guests.

Before her hand can meet yours against the red surface though, larger fingers slam down,  _hard_. You flinch, index on the cap, as Mr. Gekki squeezes his girl's hand with a blistering, white-knuckled strength.

"Honey, what did we say about manners?" he chides. You can swear it's through gritted teeth, but surely your ears must be playing tricks on you. The gentle Mr. Gekki is not the teeth-grinding type.

"Don't take from others, daddy," the daughter replies. "Don't steal someone else's opportunities."

In the calm of her voice, you hear a tremor not unlike the sound of an overheating computer, seething fire and dust between its plastic slits and keys.

But you, a mere work colleague, don't think much of it, not even of the sad smile she sends your way after her father's burning words or the way she trips while clearing the table. Mrs. Gekki chokes on her words of goodbye—seemingly broken up about meeting you, even though you've only known each other for a good two hours—as she retreats to her room, separate from her husband's and far more closeted.

And as you shake hands with the devil himself, you fail to see the evils of dysfunction and alcoholism, domestic violence and substance abuse, as they parade around in human skin and pretend to play family. You fail to see the red and purple forming on the little girl's fingers and wrist, the older blotches lining her spine and hips. The cigarette marks, like acid rain on bronze railing. The bandages, wrinkled and stale.

Sometimes, you have to leave people behind. How else do you move on?

Thus, you win the game and close the door behind you, back into the regular world. What tie should you wear tomorrow? Will mom pick up the phone tonight? Oh crap, you forgot to file that one application! The boss will kill you!

As you exit the building, something drops to your right with a frightening, loud impact. After recovering from the initial shock, you turn to see just what could've fallen—

" _Ahhh!_ "

No one said that this game didn't have consequences.

* * *

On a Monday evening, halfway past five, Gekki Senya hits concrete at the full-speed of a vehicle on the highway.

Her worries about the future condense into raindrops, which dribble down an exposed face, chest, thighs. Not that she can feel water anymore, but as her "soul" squats down and somehow pokes at the cheek of her shell, Senya likes to think that it'd be warm.

She wants the body to be warm, so that "daddy" spends an extra year in jail. They'll take one look at her mangled form, how miserable this little girl must've been in those final moments, and he might even get the ax.

At present, the man hysterically runs back into the apartment, no doubt to pack his bags and get as far away as he can, leaving the third story balcony from where he pushed his seven year-old daughter. "Mommy" is nowhere in sight, likely drowned in her pills behind a closed door.

The coworker they invited over for dinner is manic and full of regrets, punching numbers into his cellphone and crying to the operator about how he "didn't know anything" and that he "should've stepped in when she went for the ketchup." Her little "family" has always been good at hiding its faults, the beers and the bruises—but not its casualties.

Soon, the police will arrive and finally do their job,  _after_  the fact.

These things always happen after the fact, like suicide prevention or hunting regulations. They'll put up posters and PSAs in the following months, when the people or animals have already died over and over again, no justice to be had.

Senya is far from bitter though, watching as the paramedics pass—quite literally—through her and take the crumpled body away on a gray stretcher.

After all, this isn't the first time. She's already died once in another world at some grocery store parking lot, thirty-years-old and ready to become a law partner. Stabbed as she fumbled for her car keys, spine pressed against the glass of her minivan, the alumni bumper sticker of her university glaring at her in the red lamplight.

Neither cases of death were how she imagined going: alone, miserable, helpless. At least someone's here to see it this time and catch the bad guys.

Being transparent is new though. Is she going to be a spirit from now on? The whole wander-the-earth concept is very different and uncomfortable. Blood doesn't wash out of ghost hair or clothes either, which adds to the gruesomeness of the situation. She can't see her reflection in any of the windows, but she must be a ragdoll now, greasy skin and matted locks, a head split open from the concrete.

Is there an afterlife? Where is she supposed to go from here? Could this be her purgatory?

 _I always donated to charity though._  Senya purses her lips.  _Model citizen who hosted cancer runs and canned food drives. So much for that._

The decision is made for her soon enough. Within the following days of arrest and funeral arrangements a rusty chain, endless and provocative, juts out of her breast. She notices it for the first time, an eerily familiar thing, when she tries to leave the vicinity and an invisible force pulls her aggressively back. She hits the ground with a sharp  _crick_ , mildly winded and confused.

"The fu—"

Laughter breaks out to her right; she's got unexpected company. The girl looks in that direction steadily, without giving away her offense, which bubbles just under her nape and across her temple in indignation. A teenage boy leers at her from the front steps of the apartment complex, dawning a striped shirt and jeans and fiddling with a transparent yo-yo. His neck is cut deeply, as if slit by a knife.

She doesn't like being belittled—not one bit.

"What's so funny?" Senya asks.

"You," he says. "You know we're dead, right?"

"Yeah and it's not that funny—bullshit, really—so your point is?"

He blinks at the biting inquiry but quickly smiles again. She notices that his chain is visibly shorter, the ends speckled and frayed like rusty teeth imprints, as if it had been… eaten? Chewed through? What could have possibly done  _that_?

This makes her clutch her chain almost defensively. Does every spirit have one? Is this a time limit of sorts? But a time limit till what?

"We can't leave this place." The busybody's yo-yo shoots out, blue and beige and deadly. He seems a little more subdued now, like he's sharing a secret. "It seems that we have regrets keeping us rooted."

Senya scoffs and crosses her arms, displeased by the conclusion. Who is this crackhead and why is he calling the shots?

"Look, I can definitely tell that you're ready to stay here for another decade, but I've got places to be and people to haunt. Maybe even an afterlife to reach!"

"Don't resist it. It only gets harder from here."

And it certainly does. The girl tries to hop the fence, sprint from a decline, jump off the building (again); on more than one occasion, she even throws Nori's—who names their child  _seaweed_ —yo-yo for good measure, but it boomerangs back into her face. The teen's never laughed so hard in all his brief years, slapping his knees in great humor at Senya's failure.

How is it that she feels nothing after being stripped from her physical body but practically  _every_  kind of hurt from a ghost toy?! It doesn't help her pride when living people come and go as they please from the building, leaving the resident ghouls to bitch and moan about their prison. She tries to scare a pudgy businessman as he exits the building, to no avail.

No one can see them at all. You'd think that Senya would get used to being unacknowledged, but it just riles her up even more.

"I've never seen a kid with so much resolve," Nori whistles from his usual place. "You're gonna go places if you manage to beat this."

Of course she has resolve. Nobody just goes to law school for shits and giggles, especially the eldest daughter. Not that that even applies here anymore, damnit! She should've travelled the world more if she knew she'd be trapped here instead of wasting all that tuition money.

Why did she have to be reborn as a child again, and an abused one at that? If she'd been her old self, she would've sued Mr. Gekki dry and beaten  _him_  in return, the fat bastard.

"Nori, I don't even know what  _this_ ," she gestures wildly at the invisible walls around the complex, "is supposed to be! A forcefield? Hell? My dad was an abusive drunk and my mom was addicted before I could properly walk! I hated this building and everyone inside it. The walls are thin and the neighbors  _still_  did nothing. In fact, they ignored the problems even more! All I wanted was out. How could  _I_  have regrets?"

But she did, both times living. The kind of regrets that eat you away the longer you repressed them.

Nori shrugs. "Maybe it's not this specific place at all, but because deep down you're so unhappy, the first thing your misery did was latch onto the nearest thing."

Senya stops flailing and stares at her odd companion. He almost seems smart here, having only known him for maybe a few weeks, until he draws his nose back and spits right near her foot. The sunlight accentuates the disgusting act.

Right, cool: ghosts still secrete saliva, even when there's nothing to drool over. Hell, why not give him a medal while they're at it? She needs to get used to the fact that stupid is as stupid does, and she shan't expect any less from seaweed boy.

"You don't even try," she accuses. "If two people worked on this, it might make a difference."

Selfish as it may be, the young man chuckles and rolls over, ignoring her plea flat-out. "I don't do difference, girlie. I don't have ambitions and nobody's waiting for me on any side. I like it where I am, same old same old."

But he shouldn't have liked it. God, how he shouldn't have.

If there is a god in this world, Senya wonders what they'd look like, what form they would take. Do they enjoy anything? Do they hate anything? Would they have mercy, or would they damn the humans?

Why did they let their creations live in the first place, only for mortality to strike when least expected?

She feels these questions die in her heart, sinking underwater by the weight of their innocence, as Nori hits her hand away and convulses at the slightest touch. His face turns more blotchy and menacing by the minute, coughing and scratching at his skin, like he wants out out out  _out OUT_.

"Don't," he seethes, embracing himself tightly. The day is gray blue and muted, choking on its own fog and dust. There should've been nothing out of the ordinary, with Senya fighting her prisoner status as usual and Nori lazing around, cracking jokes here and there about the futility of it all. But something shifts in the air, closing in on their space for two like a heat wave.

No witnesses.

"Nori—"

Taking a step back, the girl can see the nub of his chain clearly, hollowing out and into the cavity of his chest, where his heart is supposed to be. The remaining metal almost looks diseased, sinking shades of purple and black. No blood falls from the growing hole, but it drains from Senya's face as her friend screams and screams and  _screams_.

"Nori, it's me! Senya! I'm here for you!" She kneels at his side, gripping his shoulders. "We need to get you help."

Help? What help?

And then it starts. The teen goes stockstill, head low and resting between his quaking knees. Senya breathes a sigh of relief at the stabilization, until she hears a charcoal-filled laugh bloom from beneath.

Nori rises from his seat, knocking the girl away, eyes rolling back into their sockets. His face begins to peel, like pale paint from a rusty bench, before a milky sheen sprays from his mouth and a light bursts from his pores, blinding the world.

When Senya has come to, gasping from the equivalent of punctured ribs, she is face to face with evil incarnate. The boy no longer exists.

A gray, bulbous creature looms overhead and tugs at the barbed wires around its neck, never once looking away from its prey. She smells dead animal from its exhale and dry-heaves. What appears to be a white mask molds around the head into grotesque bull horns, thick-jawed and uneven, pulling back from around the tight blue skin of its jugular to reveal a set of pin-needle teeth.

She doesn't dare to breathe or move, trying to recognize the person this thing used to be, until it smirks and chomps right down into her left arm, which almost comes clean off the shoulder but holds by the veiny seams. It takes seconds for her flight instincts to kick in and another minute for the pain to pound a migraine into her brain, like a marching band on funeral grounds. She bites back the hysteria in her throat.

Senya throws a leg out at the monster's glowing eye, scrambling from under its black hole as it whines, an absolutely miserable sound. She runs towards the street, but abruptly her chain yanks her back into the danger, mercilessly trapping her in the area. The creature catches on quickly to her escape plans, aiming those massive, grimy hands upon the metal.

But it will not have her, because no one,  _nothing_  is going to kill her again without her own goddamn permission.

In a last-ditch effort, she hooks the chain between the incoming teeth and yanks hard, effectively breaking half of the links, as well as the majority of a jaw. The monster screeches at the sky and salivates over its broken calcium.

What was she thinking? Senya wildly peers down at her breast and almost cries; at this rate, it is either get eaten or become an eater herself.

Well, here's where it gets real juicy: she decides to pass out. Yup, that's right. Her body's fed up with having to actually make choices and live with the consequences. Can't get any realer than that.

Forget the previous conviction. Who needs heroism when you can just die again? Third time's the charm.

She almost misses the person in the black and white robes slicing Nori—whatever he'd become—down the middle as the darkness sets in.

* * *

A soft voice echoes in her ear. It seems very far away, as if it were resounding across a lake, spread thin along ripples and pebbles; a flitter, a flutter of longing. But though it is sweet and dreamlike, it causes her pain.

_Great pain. Excruciating heat. Stop stop stop—_

Senya wakes against the vibrating metal of a jungle-gym to a man with unnecessarily long dirty-blonde hair. The straight-edge bangs emphasize his leery gaze and ratty chin, which somehow retain a lazy sort of charm to them. She blinks away the haze and startles properly at the stranger.

"Awake, are ya?" he asks, yawning into his sleeve. This is when she sees the sword on his lap and her lack of reflection, jolting back into hysteria.

"W-Where am I? What ha-happened to Nori?" Small hands come up to pull at hair. They're both collapsed at the edge of a playground, but the freedom away from the apartment complex doesn't register at all in Senya's mind.

"Oh god oh god oh god, is he gone for good? H-how did he become that, that—"

_He's gone. Just a boy. I should've helped… I should've…_

"Ya have a nose, now breathe through it." The man thumps her back for extra measure, and to her surprise, it helps root her back to reality. Seconds pass with each bated breath until he speaks up again.

"Just what are you, kid?"

Senya looks up, absolutely miffed by his bluntness. He's tilting his head here and there like she's some new kind of bird, a long grin flickering on his face.

"You never seen a ghost before?"

"You can't be one, they ain't supposed to bleed."

"Then what  _do_  I look like to you, dumbass?!" The girl can't logically explain why she's frustrated with someone who saved her, but her temper is happening and needs to live out its nuclear capacity. Besides, he looks like he needs an ass-whooping anyway; she somehow feels that she's doing someone out there a favor…

Despite the remark, the man smiles and points at where her chain starts. "Look, you have a bloody hole here and don't even notice. Ya can't be real, you're like the reverse of a soul. Absolutely backwards, I tell ya."

Senya frowns deeply and removes a hand from her chest, coated in crimson and pulp. She flexes her working fingers for good measure, the other mangled arm hanging limply at her side, and cringes at the gory sight.

"I don't understand what's happening," she says. "I died, I know I did. It's not the first time, sure, but then I met this boy and we both have these chains, and then his chain just ate itself day by day until he became… well, a monster."

"The first step to wisdom is avoiding boys," her companion guffaws. "Nothing good comes outta spending time with them during childhood, at least. I'm a man-child myself, or so my subordinates say."

Senya didn't think that anyone's advice could be so unnecessary; this guy's a different kind of full-o-shit. She thought Nori had been enough and then regrets thinking about him again.

"What your friend turned into," he continues, "was a Hollow."

 _Thump._  That strikes a distant chord in her mind, something she might've recognized in her past life.

"What did you just say?"

"That your friend became a Hollow?"

"Hollow is an adjective," Senya says confidently, earning a scolding knock to the head.

"Think again, little wisecrack. They're pluses gone bad, souls that run out of salvation time and lose their hearts."

 _Thump._  Losing hearts? Pluses? Such unique yet familiar language, just what was she missing—

_Orange hair, sword-fighting, a society of spirits, the end of the world—_

She feels her heart drop into her bloodsoaked gut instantly. "No," Senya breathes to herself. The tears build against her lashes, for both the loss of Nori and her dumbfounding realization. "No way."

"Kid?"

"It can't be… this is too much." The girl looks up abruptly and scans the well-known cheshire face.

_I know who you are. I know you were a great leader and lost your whole life in one night to a real monster. Oh, God…_

"Yeeeaah, I think you've had enough." He makes to stand, his robes a grand tousle of contrast in the brightly colored playground. "Time to get you home."

"I don't have one."

Her eyes dart for an exit, just one small window to get the hell out of here. That plan gets completely derailed though when the man lifts her by the scruff of her long-sleeve, flipping his sword with the hilt sticking outfront as they stand. She tries in vain to shove him away.

"Why, 'course you do. All souls have one, welcome to the family.  _Konsō!_ "

With that, he taps the harmless end of his weapon onto her forehead, sending a wash of good feeling over her body. It's a pleasant sensation between drifting through air and floating in water, blue light pooling from the bottom to the top like a developing chrysalis.

"Wha… did you… just…"

"Ha, I just won my bet! You're my last round." He ruffles her hair affectionately and watches as her legs begin to fade. "What's your name?"

"Gekki… Senya…"

"Hirako Shinji, at your service. I have a feeling that we'll be seeing each other again. I hope ya survive whatever district you wind up in!"

Ha ha, so he sold her into the red light district? Eh, beats the last retail job she had…

* * *

June. A shimmering summer day in Junrinan, the first district of West Rukongai. Thatched roofs and polished sills roll with light as overhead, green leaves twinkle to the buzzing cicadas. People hustle and bustle in the heat of the afternoon, easily locating their local vendors and businesses, particularly the confectionary stands from which all the cold desserts are sold out.

It is here by the peach trees, as a blossoming young man, that Shiba Kaien decides to take a nap. It's been a rather long day of dealing with his parents and their child-birthing struggles, as he's had to take over the family bookkeeping for his nursing mother. The baby brother has finally appeared,  _euck_.

His little sister is enough to keep them all going! How is he ever going to get into the Academy now?

Just as he settles down on a particularly soft bed of grass, ready to doze beneath the falling petals, God decides to drop a black-haired child into his lap out of seemingly nowhere, with the most clear-cut look of confusion he's ever seen anyone give.

"Bwa—!"

Enter Hinamori Momo, once known as Gekki Senya, better known as  _how the hell did I wind up in Bleach?!_


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Longer, fluffier update this time! I loved Kaien in the series and felt there could've been more done with him, so here's an introduction to the Shiba Clan. Let me know what you think, active readership makes my day!
> 
> Edit: 07/01/18

"Perhaps he knew, as I did not, that the earth was made round so that we would not see too far down the road."

—Karen Blixen (Meryl Streep),  _Out of Africa_

* * *

I'm not  _me_  anymore. But then again, was I ever really me? Or was I  _her_  all along?

Are  _we_  ever who we say we are?

…

Kaien can't believe it: the girl hasn't moved one bit. A week later, she still sits pensively beneath the peaches and blossoms, legs folded towards her body and knees tucked under her chin, watching the ground religiously. He can spot her mauve yukata from a mile away and bites his lip in worry, approaching the scene with all the readiness of a sick man and leaving the latest delivery of fireworks to the laborers.

"Hey. Hey kid."

No response.

"The hell're you still here for?"

Nothing.

"I know you can hear me, cut the act."

Nah.

"Alright, you either come quietly or I drag you by the collar."

"Don't try me, you pleb." Her voice is airy but strong, giving away nothing of her inner distress. He wonders mildly if a child her size is supposed to have such command of language, but thinks against asking when those sharp brown eyes challenge him.

"Oho, the princess speaks at last!"

Kaien gets a firm kick  _right in the cojones_  for that comment, rolling over into the grass and swearing at each individual blade. The little girl, who not long ago trespassed upon his sleep-zone, mumbles "princess my foot" through the crocodile tears spilling silently down her face. It seems that her waterworks have yet to cease from the day he met her. He can see the gears in her head haven't stopped either, piecing together the scenery and situation in either fearful surveillance or bitter realization.

A small, wounded creature trapped in one of the many, many boxes binding this society of souls together. He isn't sure how much further she can recede into that tree and pretend to not exist.

 _You can't help someone who doesn't want to be helped_ , Kaien's wounded ego scoffs.  _I say let her be, survival of the fittest._

 _She's just a child_ , his brotherly conscience refutes.  _She doesn't know the first thing about surviving in Rukongai. I have to help her._

Kaien would never hear the end of it from his folks, but he just had a feeling about this spirit: it was the kindling fire in her eyes.

"Are you all alone?" He picks himself up, coughing to mask an incoming groan of pain. When he catches the miniscule but distinct glimmer of guilt in her gaze, he proceeds to whittle away the wall. "No parents? Family?"

"I  _am_  my own family. Me, myself, and I."

"How long has it been since yer awakening? Do you have your ticket on you?"

"What ticket?"

"The one you get after coming here. Everyone who passes gets one."

"Must be your lucky day. You're looking at a real  _specimen_  right here."

He ignores the sarcasm and scratches his head. "That's strange…"

"Look, I know you're trying to help." She wipes at her face, skin glistening in hues of pink and yellow under the summer sun. Kaien watches in fascination as the angsty creature seems to grow older the deeper in thought she goes, her mouth running at a different speed from her mind. "You look like a good guy, if not some family head trying to get a higher education and spread good influence—boy, do I know how that feels—but I suggest you run along back to the light and let the rest of us sulk in our darkness."

The youth laughs into his gray sleeve, positively baffled by this know-it-all of a squirt. He supposes that her defensive nature is a good thing though. He would rather her fight potential bad apples than take the leap of fate, only to bite into poison.

"If I'm such a good guy, I'd obviously bring you into the light with me."

"You left me day one. What made you come back?"

"My superior conscience."

"Bah." The girl waves him off. "I can tell you're the hero type already. They can never leave a charity case alone."

"Is that supposed to scare me off or something? Cause you're a hundred years too early to be threatening me, shortstack."

"Those who comment on another person's height are compensating for something themselves." She looks directly at his family jewels then, eyebrows raised into the hairline as Kaien turns a furious shade of red.

"Leave them alone, would ya?!"

"I'll leave them alone when you leave me alone."

"If you die alone here, it'll haunt me forever."

Rather than ignore him again, she uncurls from her self-imposed quarantine like a roly-poly and scrutinizes him with the grace of a feline. To level with her, he crosses his legs down and holds both hands on his thighs, leaning forward just enough to not pop either personal bubble. They sit like that for a while, mapping out their odd counterpart and devising individual plans, respectively how best to take her home versus how best to shut him up forever.

"Do you have a name?" Kaien asks, his eyes deeply watchful in their green flumes of shadow.

"Two," she replies automatically.

"Huh? Is that some kinda joke?"

"There are two names," she repeats, completely serious, if not a little frightened. "Which one do you want? The real one or the new one?"

Kaien blinks rapidly, opening and closing his mouth like the guppy he is, a good-natured slowness about him.

"Er… the real one? Obviously."

Suddenly, she shakes her head; inside, an inner debate rages on, but she's come to a decision. "Just kidding. Forget I said that, I can get pretty weird."

"Sure." He wouldn't, of course. Frankly, the mystery would be on his mind constantly in the future, for the assertion had come so naturally from the girl. What could she be hiding?

The child tilts her face up to the blossoms above, pinpointing one particular area full of peaches and staying there, basking in the presence of nature as if for the first time. Then, a curious smile and outreached hand appear. The hairs at the back of Kaien's neck stand at the gesture, like he's bitten more than he can chew and has to down indigestion medicine.

"Hinamori Momo. What do they call you, Mr. Hero?"

He stares quite openly at the small appendage, before the hesitation finally passes and he shakes it. After all, how can this defenseless and parentless child pose a danger to him? The women in his family have proven to be much more frightening.

"Shiba Kaien."

* * *

Shiba Kūkaku is unimpressed, to say the least, at her eldest brother's newest addition to the family. First it was a canary with a broken wing, then it was a dog with more teeth than fur, then a turtle and a pig and an old woman who thought Kaien was her long-lost nephew—

And now this. He was always too nice for his own good; broken things had always been attracted to his light. She sighs for the umpteenth time at his obliviousness.

With her mother nursing baby Ganju and her father attending a clan gathering, Kūkaku has been tasked with manning the fort, the responsibilities of which include shutting the door in the face of those deemed unworthy of the Shiba presence.

Like this bozo and his unwanted nice guy act.

"Damnit Kūkaku, I am your  _big brother_!" Kaien pounds on the bamboo planks of the front gate furiously. "We've gone over this before, you brat! You don't lock family outside!"

A small square panel appears in the frame, revealing the little sister and her bowl of dried persimmons. She drags a finger under her left eye and sticks her tongue out.

"When you leave your newest toy behind, I'll reconsider. Can't be sullying the family name before your big entrance into society."

He sticks his arm through the opening and makes a grab for her white headband, to which she slams the sliding door onto his wrist, receiving a satisfying shriek in the process.

"You—!"

"Responsibility is key, Mr. Future-Shinigami."

Oh, how  _good_  it feels to poke at his tiny ego. As her brother continues to hit the door, searching for every and any signs of illegal entry, Kūkaku gets a good look at the girl behind him. She's a slight thing, black hair pulled back by a straw string and robes fastened haphazardly around her shoulders. Like most of the children from Rukongai, she walks barefoot into the world, nails chipped and pinched with dirt. The only place with much meat is in her soft and doe-like face, an amalgamation of baby fat along the cheeks and jawline.

If the Shiba didn't know any better, she would assume the child to be some prostitute's misgiving—pretty, fragile, rough around the edges—but there is something about her eyes that stops the thought from leaving the station. At a distance, they are big and round like two polished river stones, but the closer they draw, the more they shine with calculation and cunning.

No child is in that body. No way.

Finally, Kaien has had it. Bringing one knee down into the dirt and raising his arms back, he calls to his ward.

"Momo, get on. We're doing this the ol'-fashioned way."

For a moment, Kūkaku sees a worried flash in the earthy gaze, so different from her family's forest green, but it disappears as soon as the girl obliges, wrapping slender arms around broad shoulders and pressing a cheek to the side of a broad neck. With the added weight, it takes the young man an extra minute to scale the gate and land next to his sister, barely breaking a sweat.

"Took you long enough to think of that, genius," Kūkaku announces. He's gently patting down the child, who pushes his hands away, as if unused to concern. "I dunno why you have to make a big show of coming through the front door when you could just give in to your inner gorilla."

He hits her upside the head, the persimmons falling and sprinkling around them. "Not all of us are as unsophisticated as you, idiot."

"You don't see me climbing walls or bringing home strays."

"Oh yeah? I'll show you  _stray_!"

The siblings start putting each other into headlocks, foregoing delicate outerwear and hairdos as they wrestle on the ground. Kūkaku gets a bite into Kaien's forearm as he finally pulls out her headband and cackles towards the heavens.

In the meantime, Momo steps into the ring and picks up a dirty persimmon, lifting it to her nose and smelling the sugar frost over the orange skin. Brother and sister stop and stare at the phenomenon—a deer walking into the lake of fire—before jumping up at the girl, who innocently puts the dried fruit to her lips.

Five second rule, right?

"Don't eat that!" they simultaneously say, tackling her down. Within moments, the child loses both her snack and breath, giggling at the ridiculous dynamic duo.

"It worked," she states, before her head lolls into unconsciousness. When Kaien pulls her into his arms and starts shaking Momo, yelling "don't die, I just brought you home", Kūkaku begins to think that another girl around here wouldn't be so bad after all. Her brother hasn't looked so beside himself with pride for a long time.

Not bad at all.

* * *

He finds his little ward wherever she goes. It's like the guy's got a built-in GPS or something—of course, Kaien  _could_  just be looking for trouble, and Momo's definitely that and more. Unfortunately, she's not foolproof.

Up in a tree? Expect him to be on the branch above.

In the closet? He just happens to need that one specific coat he never wears,  _ever_.

Taking a shit? The man has enough decency to back away this time, unless he wants his precious region to suffer again.

It has been a couple of months since her arrival to the Shiba Clan estate, a rather charming cross between mansion and factory that smells simultaneously of gunpowder and flowers in its massivity, covering a big parameter of land in Junrinan. Why the family decided to live so close to the common life and not the glowing halo of Seireitei, like all the other rich people, remains a mystery.

Though Momo supposes that it fits their honorable character, to live and breathe beside their customers and workers. If Kaien was brave enough to bring her home, who knows what else this family has done in the name of goodness?

The main branch, which specializes in fireworks, comes in and out of shop every three hours during the morning and day for deliveries, orchestrated and shot off solely by trained practitioners. How anyone would need so much festive ammunition is beyond Momo; she has yet to see herself why these explosions are special, having found the flower arrangement side of the family much more enticing.

In her prior adulthood, she had been big on anything floral, probably because the rest of her life had passed by in shades of gray. She can no longer say the same for this existence. Every single day is a new concern.

Upon her meeting with Kūkaku, the girl was introduced to a gaggle of servants, who scrubbed her so raw, she was sure she'd actually been reborn a hard-boiled egg. For what seemed like an eternity, they went on to find the best shade of blue to match her hair and so on and so forth. Obi after obi had been brought out to test, until Momo thoroughly melted down and settled for a cornflower yukata.

_Is there a shade of blue that describes how much I want to jump out the window?_

Kūkaku had been charged with her room maintenance and decor, the sizable space sandwiched between those of the eldest siblings. In the other corridor Lady Shiba, her husband, and the newest addition to the family, Ganju, slept in more relative peace.

How she envied their privacy.

"You're probably here for life," Kūkaku announced. "Better get used to it."

She isn't sure she'll ever get used to living here; she couldn't even adapt to her human life, much less this one. The attention to detail was ridiculous. If Momo had known sooner that the hero she decided to trust was really the rich boy she'd predicted, she would've run the other direction.

Not that it matters much now. She's made her bed and must lay in it, even if her surroundings make less and less sense to her; for how does one transgress dimensions and wind up in their childhood manga, Feudal Japanese afterlife and all? To top that, she's already run into some important players, who Momo vaguely knows might meet their ends one of these days with or without her interference.

 _Come on._  This kind of stuff should be reserved for B-rate movies and fan tributes.  _Please._

"There is no God," she bitterly mumbles. Sixty-three days in counting and she hasn't disappeared yet, meaning that this must either all be real or she's stuck in an alien pod somewhere under an induced fantasy sleep. "If there is one, they picked the wrong brawd to change the world. Aw shit,  _wait_ , there's the Soul King and all that Quincy pizzazz. Gee, might as well bury myself now while I have the chance."

In a notebook she stole from Kaien's school supplies, she begins to list off essential plot points and characters, carefully scratching out the story that started her on a justice-oriented path. She remembers quite vividly being in 6th grade and sneaking peeks at her seatmate's volume of Bleach. In her mother's lap that very night, she ordered the same comic off the internet and practically worshipped it all the way through middle school and into high school.

Had to get her moral compass somewhere. Why not from an orange-haired superhuman?

Of course, by her late teens, Momo had fallen in love with other series, especially in the wake of a poorly rendered final arc ending—not to mention her favorite characters dying one by one—but nothing could replace the golden age of shōnen manga for her.

When she finally became a lawyer, the kids those days didn't know any better. They grew up on  _Boruto_ , for the love of all that is ninja and holy.

But the reincarnated soul digresses. There are more important matters at hand…

… like the major discrepancy with her name and the voices in her head, willing her to forge ahead with this new persona.

When she had finally gotten a good look at herself in the mirror, her initial reaction was to scream: there, in the reflection, an unknown body with a name she's never known. Yet, the longer she stared into her wide eyes,  _Hinamori Momo_  became clearer and clearer.

She'd somehow crossed universes to embody a character who did nothing wrong and still got messed up. An orphan, born and raised in Junrinan, who rose up in the ranks for her abilities and dedication, to ultimately stand by a lonely megalomaniac's side and get stabbed twice in the back.

 _I'm not even going to think about how I'm gonna deal with Aizen_ , the girl vows.  _Not until someone puts a gun to my head. Do they even have guns in Seireitei?_

Since Kaien is attending the Academy next year and graduating just as quickly, that means Momo is in uncharted, pre-canon territory and running into the plot blind. The whole Visored episode is a blur to her, and though she recognized some shit-eating grins like Shinji, she can't be sure of anything.

Would she, too, attend the Academy and become a Shinigami? Become second to the biggest baddie this side of the afterlife? Had she killed the real Momo somehow and stolen her chance to live? Like things couldn't get anymore meta than this.

Gekki Senya might as well have never existed; the lawyer, the abused child, are out of mind and sight. How was this intruder supposed to navigate, when all she knows is a century away from happening?

On another note, how had she not passed out from  _starvation_? Her hunger has been eating away at her innards since day one, this body gearing up to be "special" when all she wanted to be was "off-grid and living in the wilderness", but not once has she eaten anything from Rukongai.

Perhaps for the better, too. The longer she can hide the unsettling, unwanted energy of Reiatsu building in her core from the Shibas, the more planning she can do to prevent imminent death.

That is, if Momo could get one minute by herself. She's sure Kaien could try even the Soul King.

"Are you bored?" On a casual autumn day, somewhere in the middle of August, she gets whiplash turning on her heel and facing her savior. "Why do you keep on following me? Don't you have someone else to bother?"

He conks her lightly on the head, a love-tap that makes her pout deeper. Inside, some disgustingly bubbly feeling erupts and fills her system with—dare she say it?— _appreciation_. "Is that any way to speak to your brother?"

"I think you misheard me, bother."

Kaien rolls his eyes and sits cross-legged on the grass. She joins him soon, a pamphlet on fireworks tucked in her sleeve. Momo, for all her years of working in frenzied courthouses, has never lived the excitement of launching a rocket and can't help the curiosity. Of course, the eldest Shiba spots her research quickly, even when she tries to make her efforts invisible, and sighs in mock-exasperation.

"One of these days," he begins, "you'll love me back so much, ya won't be able to get enough of me!"

She pulls a face. "If you weren't so suspicious all the time, I would reconsider." In the lazy sunshine, a peace she hasn't felt for a very long time, Momo tilts her head and gives him a curious look. "Hey."

"Hm?" Emerald eyes settle on her, prying apart the barriers. She swallows, nearly ready to spill out everything, from who she really is to all the bad people coming for this world to Kaien's death. Aaroniero's mocking disguise while fighting Rukia invades her head and makes her want to vomit.

 _He's real_ , Momo thinks, reaching out to grasp the corner of his sleeve. He twists his arm to hold her hand instead, thumbing at the small knuckles.  _Flesh and blood, not a cartoon. He's real and he's going to die and I'm going to die again—_

"What is it?" Kaien leans in with an infuriatingly sympathetic look. "What is it you're not telling me?"

The young man's always been dangerously perceptive, but like their first few meetings, she won't let him in on the secret. Not yet.

"Aren't you suspicious of  _me_?"

"Why's that?"

"Well I'm… I'm a stranger. Poor and homeless, at that."

He pats her head down the way she hates. "You're not a stranger anymore. Not homeless either. Use that little brain of yours, Hinamori. I know it never stops thinking."

"So you're just fine with letting a  _total_  stranger into your world?" Momo insists, thumbing his fingers back and genuinely wondering why the Shibas decided to house a potential plothole personified. She half-regrets asking when Kaien flashes her his cheesiest smile yet, the kind that could end wars and make her forget her insignificance in the grand scheme of things.

"Because you make such lonely faces. Now c'mere!"

* * *

Someone rises from the sand, hands crossed over the chest and mouth opened wide to eat up the fresh air. Indigo clouds bear down all around the landscape, a shifting sea of rust-colored sand encroached upon by solid darkness, an unsettled earth. Every cloud, its own secret reformation, billowing, hardening, dispersing. Lightning licks out of them, out of nothingness.

Ahead, the awakened "Senya" can see a road of onyx reach into the distance, perfect black stone pitched one after the other like cobblestone streets. She lifts herself from the waves and wanders off the path, called to do so by a voice she knows but doesn't know.

 _Why did he leave me?_  it asks, cries, begs.

"Who left you?" Step by step, Senya wades through, fingers outreached and guiding her body further and further into the haze. It grows thicker the more she tries to break it down.

_How could I be so stupid?_

"Who are you?" the girl inquires. "Please!" She can feel herself being tugged beneath the dunes, coughing up the blood-like sand and crumbling just like it.

_He'll never cease to haunt me._

Senya stops, waist-deep and trembling after the long trek. Not far from her resting point, a woman with hair set in a sea-green clothed bun cries into bruised hands. She dawns traditional black and white robes fixed around a trembling frame, and the girl wonders distantly if these are the people who run this new world, if they get to decide who lives and who dies. This time, the tang of iron comes not from the sand, but the red fluid seeping from a bitten tongue.

_Save me._

"Don't cry, don't cry. He's not here. I am."

The figure rounds her tea-colored gaze on Senya, who startles at the familiarity of the tear-stricken face. She hears the sediment build up around them, closing in on their open circle, but continues to walk forward. Inexplicably, the woman reaches out to her too, the scabbard of her sword shifting with her turning hip movement.

_I failed the people I love. I failed myself._

Soon, the pair meet halfway, palms touched and expressions mirrored. The clouds descend nearer and curl around their bodies, fastening them in soft smudges of shadow. One wrong move, and their unity would shatter to pieces.

"It's okay, you're going to be okay," Senya affirms. She watches the pearls fade from her counterpart's lashes, a pretty smile grace dry lips. "My name is Senya. What's yours?"

_Momo._

Finally, they no longer resist the sands and clouds, swallowed whole by the darkness together.


End file.
